All US patents and applications and all other published documents mentioned anywhere in this application are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Without limiting the scope of the invention a brief summary of some of the claimed embodiments of the invention is set forth below. Additional details of the summarized embodiments of the invention and/or additional embodiments of the invention may be found in the Detailed Description of the Invention below.
A brief abstract of the technical disclosure in the specification is provided as well only for the purposes of complying with 37 C.F.R. 1.72. The abstract is not intended to be used for interpreting the scope of the claims.
Various forms of replacement heart valves are known in the art. Moreover, a variety of catheter systems have been developed to implant such replacement heart valves. One method of implantation is Transcatheter Aortic-Valve Implantation (TAVI). Existing TAVI systems suffer from a number of deficiencies, however. In particular, known TAVI systems are relatively large in diameter, which can impede insertion of the catheter. Further, known TAVI systems suffer from a lack of flexibility, which results from the large size of known TAVI systems. Additionally, the large size requires a large entrance incision, further complicating the procedure and increasing risk to the patient.
In light of the foregoing drawbacks associated with existing TAVI systems, there remains a need for a TAVI system having a smaller profile and greater flexibility.